Network documents such as web pages provide a convenient method for asynchronous communication. Placing content on a network site allows a user to access the content without further assistance from the author of the network document. This provides advantages for vendors, for example, as potential customers can obtain information at any time.
Unfortunately, there are limits to the amount of information that can be conveniently displayed at one time, due in part to limitations on the expected size of display screens for computing devices. As a result, only a portion of all available information can be offered to a user on the entry pages of a web site. Depending on the particular information a user is looking for, a user may have to serially select a number of links to find the desired information.
One way to increase the amount of information available is by using containers or portlets. A container is a portion of a web page that can include some information that can be viewed or hidden, depending on a user selection. Using containers, the amount of accessible information available on a web page can be increased. However, each container must be individually opened and closed, which can make it time-consuming to view multiple containers on a page.
Stacked series of menus provide another option for making content available on what appears to be a single page. When a stacked series of menus is used, each selection by a user can bring up another menu within the selected topic and/or additional information about the topic. Stacked menus can provide an interface to allow a user to target specific information at a web site. However, if the user makes an incorrect guess about where information is located within the stacked menus, the user may have to repeat the process of searching for information multiple times to find the correct branch of the menu tree.